How Do Museums Speak the Unspeakable?

Published: June 11, 1989

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This is particularly true when it comes to the visual art and monuments that have been created on the theme of the Holocaust. Very few artists have been able to deal successfully with this subject matter since no artistic creation has proven more powerful or moving than the few photographs that have survived.

The result is that there is a good deal of extremely bad painting, sculpture and monuments on this subject. Museum curators and government officials often find themselves unable to refuse these works due to the nature of the subject matter. In many cases, art coupled with the Holocaust has been degraded into kitsch and bad taste. This is far from the message we should derive from one of the saddest episodes in history. The Question Of the Young

Whether modern technological inventions, entertainment gadgets and computerized information devices can do justice to one of the most intimate, tragic chapters in human history remains an open question.

Other issues center around the kind of audience that Holocaust museums should address. For example, should that audience be Jewish, non-Jewish or both? Still another is the age level of visitors. Intuitively, one feels that a person should visit this kind of museum as part of a family. However, it is far from advisable for young children to be exposed to Holocaust material. At the Yad Vashem it is generally believed that the appropriate age for a person to be exposed to images of the Holocaust is 15.

From an educational point of view, therefore, Holocaust museums must adapt to various intellectual, social and age levels. This task is particularly difficult because we really do not know how these museums influence the public. No surveys have been made at the existing Holocaust museums to measure their impact on visitors. Obviously, the emotional impact is usually very strong, but it is not known how this translates into value systems or behavior patterns.

There is no doubt that the people behind Holocaust museums are motivated by good will. On the other hand, the outlook of these organizers, who are in most cases distinguished leaders of the Jewish community, is crucial. Further, the participation of Holocaust survivors may tend to complicate decision making because of the emotional intensity of the issues. The fact that a person is a Holocaust survivor does not automatically make him or her a good museologist.

More research is needed and more thought must be given to these projects. The underlying questions confronting Holocaust museums are of the greatest magnitude and must be faced in an honest, intellectual atmosphere.

Photo of a monument by the sculptor Mandor Glid, outside the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, commemorates victims of the Nazi death camps (Ira Nowinski/Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York)